EXCLUSIVEClint Eastwood’s Kids Open Up About Their Hollywood Icon Dad — “He’s a Real Softie!”

In the latest issue of Closer Weekly — on newsstands now — Clint Eastwood’s kids open up about the father only they knew. He became world-famous as trigger-happy cop Dirty Harry Callahan and Western antihero The Man With No Name, but to them, he’s just “Dad."

His daughter Alison Eastwood, 44, tells Closer, “People ask me what it was like growing up with him as a father, but he wasn’t different from any other dad.” She explains, “He’s way laid-back. Probably too laid-back. Don’t tell him, though!”

Clint with his family in August 2002.

“Clint is kind of a hippie dad,” an insider tells Closer. “He’s all about letting his kids do their own thing.”

For most, that’s meant following in their 86-year-old father’s show business footsteps — or bootsteps, in the case of son Scott, 30, who starred in this year’s Western Diablo, or daughter Francesca, 22, who plays her first lead in the new shoot-’em-up Outlaws and Angels. “It’s cool to touch on something that’s the same genre,” she told Closer at the film’s LA premiere, adding that Clint is “a tough guy, but he’s also a dad — he’s the real deal, a real person.”

Clint with his son Scott in October 2006.

“As a teenager, you think your parents are dorky,” says Alison. “But as my brother [Kyle, 48] and I matured, we realized how much they meant to us.” These days, “My dad and I are good friends — we laugh a lot,” Alison says. “We have a lot to share.”

For more from Clint Eastwood’s kids, pick up the latest issue of Closer Weekly, on newsstands now!